KARDS Model from Language Teacher Education for a Global Society (Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 125).

Instructions for use

Discuss these questions with reference to *Emilie’s story. How did her story address these aspects of her ‘becoming’?

Knowing: Informing, managing, and inspirational leadership

Professional Knowledge: How am I (working with my) knowing about the language form, how we use it, and how it mediates power? How am I (working with my) knowing about how languages pass between speakers and embed themselves in hearts and minds?

Procedural Knowledge: How am I purposefully managing the class? How am I causing my students to learn? How am I connecting with them in class and organising their learning?

Personal Knowledge: How am I leveraging my wisdom and tacit knowledge about life, language and people, to enable my goals and enrich my practice?

Analysing: Empowering and liberating by ‘tuning in’ to our learners’ realities

Learner Needs: How will what I am offering empower my students? How have I conducted (formally or informally) a ‘wants analysis’ for my students (so I know there will be ‘buy-in’)?

Learner Motivation: How am I connecting with the ‘context dependent, multi-faceted, and dynamic’ motivations of my students?

Learner Autonomy: How am connecting students with their intrinsic desire to grow? How am I developing self-regulating behaviours — to liberate them from external agendas? How will they be transformed (even in a small way) by what we do together?

Recognising: Interrogating the teacher ‘self’

Teacher Identities: How am I transforming into my teacher self? (How am I constructing the complex intersections between individual, social, national, and global realities?)

Teacher Beliefs and Dispositions: How do my beliefs about the world and my learners affect how I teach? How does my (intercultural) disposition shape my practice?

Teacher Values: How do my values and moral views affect how I teach, plan, make decisions, respond (for example, to observer/learner perspectives of me)?

Doing: Teaching is a reflexive activity

Teaching: How am I maximising learning opportunities? Am I mentoring personal transformation? If so, how?

Theorising: How am I developing theories (through considering methods, testing theories, & problem-solving) about teaching and learning through and from my own practice?

Dialogising: How am I engaged in continual, critical, reflexive practice? (i.e., How am I talking honestly to myself about my own practice?)

Seeing: (Seeing, Seeing-as, Seeing-that) Considering the interrelated perspectives in classroom discourse and interaction

Learner Perspective: How am I seeking to understand how my students are engaging with (affective), and making sense of (cognitive), my teaching? What tools am I using to ensure I am open to constructive learner feedback?

Teacher Perspective: Acknowledging my influence, how am I evaluating the impact of my teaching, reflecting on what I see, and allowing it to inform my practice?

Observer Perspective: How am I seeking, processing, and applying the impressions of an observer (a ‘critical friend’)?

This ‘language teacher education reflective framework’ is a first incarnation of a tool designed for use with a prac student you are mentoring, your own practice for reflective purposes, or with a colleague as ‘a critical friend’. Any suggestions for improvement welcomed. Please comment below.